I think I've finished what's available now. I found Alice's ring and helped Vlada, so now all I can do is the repeatable quests. Will save files still work with new builds when they are released? Or will each build require starting over? I'm debating if I want to spend any time grinding the repeatables for money, collecting recipes, furnishing the house, and increasing stats and perks, but if the save won't work that there's no point.
The story so far seems to mostly just be mystery. I don't know how long you intend the full game to be, but this basically feels like a prologue (which makes sense for a demo). As I understand it the story is:
- You don't know who you are
- You were attacked by *someone*
- Dead animals are being found in unexplainable conditions
- Some supernatural evil is causing people to disappear and leaving nothing but death and rot across the land in it's wake
- *someone* is leaving traps in the woods
- Vlada has also been attacked by *someone*
- These 3 *someone*s may or may not be the same people
- The supernatural evil, dead animals, and *someone*s may or may not be connected
- You may or may not have a connection to and/or a bigger role to play in everything as your memories return.
- Everyone is horny. So horny
If you plan for everything to be connected then I can see potential for an interesting story there. If it's not connected then it's too much, and you should focus the story more. The main problem, I think, is the pacing. It's just so slow. I don't know how many hours it took to run out of things to do, but I can tell that with this pace a fully fleshed out story may end up being a 100+ hour epic, which is difficult to do for even a whole studio. here's my opinion:
Problem: Buying a house takes way too long. Saving up 15 Denga takes hours, and while doing so it disincentivizes the player from spending money on other things.It makes it feel bad to buy food, or repair equipment, or other necessary things. Then when you get the house it's a bit of a disappointment. It's just a stove with no tools and a hay bale bed. Sure, the comfort level and effectiveness of sleep is better, but it just doesn't feel worth the time and effort it took to get it.
Suggestion: Don't charge for the house. Forget about the bench and campfire in the middle of town. Say it's in exchange for helping them out, and that you can pay it off slowly by working. Use that as a reasoning for some quest rewards seeming small.
Problem: Get the plot started faster. You get the main story quest "Fog in the Head" right at the start then it doesn't get updated for hours. By the time the merchant came and said to investigate where I was attacked my first thought was "Uh.. Where was I attacked? Did they tell me? It's been so long I don't remember."
Suggestion: Have him come sooner. On the second or third day, maybe. Him being there doesn't hurt the progression of the story with the other characters, so why not? If you don't want him to be there permanently from that early on then make use of your day/night cycle. Have him come once a week, maybe, then once the world opens up and you can go to other villages you become able to go visit him where he lives. Alternatively, there's another empty house. Maybe he leaves Brynja at the village to help you and also keep an eye on you to make sure you keep your end of the deal to help him.
Aside from those two things, having more show don't tell for the story would be nice. People are finding mutilated animals? OK, so have at least one somewhere in the woods for the player to find. Some evil is causing everything to rot? OK, have some portion of an area that is dead, though with the size of the world right now I can see not wanting to put that too close to the village. People are being attacked? OK, have the body of a victim somewhere for the player to find. Make them think "That could have been me... I should thank Shaartan again."
Some other things that go nowhere right now:
The bathhouse. You fix it up, get one scene, then never think about it again. All that's in it is a normal stove. It should serve a purpose. Something like letting the player visit the bathhouse to recover some health, or get a buff of some kind, but in exchange the passage of time while there makes you lose daylight you could have been doing something else in, you get hungry, and with the sauna making you sweat you need water.
Lockpicking. I finally decided to make a save in front of a lock with picks ready and said I would keep reloading until I got it. Eventually I did manage to do it. The problem is, as far as I can tell there are 5 locked buildings and no other locks in the game right now. 3 of those 5 you can get keys to (warehouse, bathhouse, and the house you buy), so I wondered about the other two. Once I managed to pick the locks I found... Nothing. They are completely empty. You should really have something in there as a reward for being able to get in.
Gloves. This feels like such a no brainer, no offense. One of the first things you do in the game is collect nettle, and you are told that you should use gloves because it's prickly and does indeed cause a small amount of damage when you collected it bare handed. There are no gloves in the game.
And in closing, a random meaningless thought I had while playing:
I climbed a mountain because it was there.
I got bit when I hand-fed a bear.
I met a centaur and wondered...
It goes where?
Also, seeing a normal human height centaur with a miniture pony sized body gave me a good laugh. Nothing wrong with it, just unexpected.
Discord add sent, too. I'm phantomearth there.